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Monday, November 3, 2014

A historic Russian icon is coming to McKeesport church, Pennsylvania

A historic Russian icon is coming to
McKeesport on Sunday as part of a downtown church's celebration of 97
years of service to God.

Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary Russian
Orthodox Church, 330 Shaw Ave., will welcome an archpastoral visit by
the Right Rev. Nicholas Olhovsky, bishop of the Eastern American
Diocese, Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.

The greeting of the bishop and Divine Liturgy will begin at 9:15 a.m.

The church's rector, Father Dimitri D.
Ermakov, said the bishop will bring with him the Kursk Root Icon of the
Blessed Virgin Mary.

“The history of the Kursk Root Icon begins
in the 13th century, when it was discovered by hunters near the city of
Kursk, Russia,” Ermakov said. “On Sept. 8, 1295, the feast of the
Nativity of the Mother of God, one of the hunters noticed the icon, a
copy of the ‘Znamenie' (‘Sign') Icon, lying face-down on the ground
against the root of a tree. As he lifted the holy icon, a strong spring
of pure water surged up out of the ground at the place where it had been
lying.”

Ermakov said that spring continues to flow
to this day, despite efforts by the government of the former Soviet
Union to plug it up, in what came to be known as the Kursk Root
Hermitage.

“With the help of his friends, the hunter
built a small chapel and placed the newly found icon within it,” Ermakov
said. “Residents of the nearby city of Rylsk began to visit the icon,
where miracles of healing often occurred.”

According to church histories cited by
Ermakov, the icon was moved to a new church in Rylsk dedicated to the
Nativity of the Theotokos (“Birthgiver of God” and the Greek title for
Mary), but later it vanished and returned to its former place in the
woods.

Over the years the icon was transferred between the cathedral in Kursk and the Hermitage.

“In 1612, the presence of the Kursk Root
Icon was credited with saving the city (of Kursk) from being sacked by
Polish invaders,” Ermakov said.

The icon was hacked in half by Mongols in
1383, during what was known as the Tatar Yoke. Its guardian, Father
Bogolep, was imprisoned as well but later regained his freedom and
recovered the two pieces of the icon.

“The icon miraculously fused back together,”
Ermakov said. “In 1898, anti-tsarist anarchists placed a bomb under the
icon during a service, hoping to kill the faithful at worship and
destroy the wonderworking image. Instead, the bomb did not explode until
late at night, and despite severe damage to the cathedral, the icon
remained fully intact.”

The icon was stolen again after the Russian Revolution of 1917 but recovered at a local well.

During World War II it was said that bombs never fell on the homes of residents who visited the icon.

The icon was moved to Germany after the war,
then to New York in 1951, where it was placed in the Synodal Cathedral
of the Sign.

It has traveled around the world ever since,
including a 1966 visit to San Francisco during the funeral of St. John
Maximovitch and a return to Russia in 2009.

“It visited Moscow and Kursk, where over 1
million people came to venerate it and offer up their prayers to
Christ's mother,” Ermakov said.